Avatar Team
by xt1me
Summary: Zuko finds an old file while the working as Fire Lord.   one shot  -because I have no idea how to continue it-


AN: Yes, the title is stupid but it sums things up. What would the A-Team be like in the Avatar-verse.

Don't own A-Team, Don't own Avatar.

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><p>'Paperwork,' Zuko thought, 'No wonder most of my ancestors went crazy.'<br>It had been over a decade since the end of the war and he was still dealing with the problems it caused.  
>A scribe brought in another batch and Zuko smiled wanly at her. He had a team of bookkeepers to help him with the mess, so most days he was torn between setting them all on fire or showering them with gold.<br>He put down what he had previously been working on in a pile for his accountants to deal with (paying people with land from places that hadn't been conquered yet. What had his farther been thinking? Oh yeah. Crazy.) and turned to the new pile.

The first thing that caught his eye was '_escaped from Boiling Rock_'. He though he and Sokka had been the first to do that. Quickly reading through, he found that though they were the first, they were not the last. There were a number of reports from the Warden at the time, someone called Lynch. (Mai's uncle had retired after the escape Zuko had been involved in but, by all accounts, his replacement was just like him.)  
>There was also a copy of a request to be transferred to chase after the escapees. In the reports that request appeared to have been granted.<p>

The prisoners were a former army unit that had robbed an Earth Kingdom gold deposit at the end of the war. (Disappointing but not uncommon. Many unscrupulous men had tried to take advantage of the confusion to grab what they could. Another thing that added to his never ending stream of paperwork.) Interestingly though, the men claimed to have been under orders. Apparently they still claimed that to this day.

Zuko settled down to read through the personnel files.

The first man of the group was a Colonel Yāo hàn. Though with a nickname like 'Hannibal' he must be quite an interesting person. (Zuko had to study famous Generals when he was younger and you didn't forget plans that had included marching a herd of Camelephants over almost impassable mountains.) According to the file the man was a firebender and commanded one of the most decorated rapid response teams in the army. The amount of commendations he had received only just outnumbered the condemnations. Though there was a letter of recommendation from General Iroh on record. He'd have to ask Uncle about that.

The next man was Sergeant Bosco. (Zuko couldn't help but smirk as he thought of the Earth King's bear.) Called 'BA' because of his bad attitude, the man was an accomplished mechanic. A fact that apparently made up for his disrespect to certain officials. He was also an earthbeander.  
>Before he had started dealing with the mess the war left his nation in, Zuko had never known there were earthbenders in his army. The fact that some of the colonies were almost a hundred year old meant that it was all but inevitable. Loyal families that would never dream of calling themselves anything but Fire Nation did occasionally produce earthbeners and these people, like many of the nations citizens, would occasionally join the army. And when you were stuck under a mountain in battle you'd thank Agni they were there. Of course it wasn't widely talked about or even mentioned near the capital. He could imagen what the nobles might think. There was also the matter of the unfortunate fact remained that no Fire Nation earthbender that was captured by the enemy was ever returned alive. Apparently "traitors" were harshly dealt with.<p>

The file on the last escaped prisoner was for a lieutenant by the name of Templeton. (Which means he was a war orphan. Most holy orders felt it was part of their duty to take in those who were left clanless because of the war. There were far too many people nowadays with a 'temple' or 'shrine' in their name.)  
>A number of complaints were on his file though no actual demerits. Interestingly they were mainly from male officers, the majority of the female ones saying the opposite. Which might explain the nickname 'Face'. (Zuko wondered how many people looked at that and not his archery scores. Good enough for the Yu Yan in places.) He was their requisitions officer and a suspected waterbender?<br>Whatever people might feel about earthbenders in the army, water was fires opposite. It would not be something people talked about or even admitted as a possibility. You would have to drench a noble in front of a fire sage to get an accusation like that to stick. Yet, while there were no _confirmed_waterbenders in the army the fact the even a suspicion made it into an official report, anywhere, said a lot.

The last personnel file was one a Captain 'Howling Mad' Mò duō kè. The last member of the team and apparently helped in the theft. So why wasn't he listed with them as an escaped prisoner? Oh. Zuko recognised the name 'Chung-Ling Institute for Wounded Veterans' he had looked into it when searching for places that could help his sister. (He may have hated and feared Azula but she was still his sister. Seeing her as she was now was … sad.) Shaking off the image of Azula sounded by nurses and chi-blockers ignoring the world, he went back to the files.  
>The captain claimed to be able to pilot any machine the world could produce and had certainly risen to be the best at piloting airships when they arrived in the war. Which was when he decided he was an airbender. Poor man. But if he was that broken then why was his file here? Ah, Lynch seemed to think the team visited him and even broke him out on occasion. Which was a commendation on their loyalty if true but didn't make much sense. Though there was a suspiciously high number of odd incidents on file there was no proof.<p>

The next set of papers were extracts from some news leaflets. Zuko didn't pay much attention to those things himself, they were mainly stages for the latest round of propaganda that made the Ember Island Player's tales seem cold, hard fact. These seemed to come from one of the better ones, with the minimum amount of 'all hail insert-current-Fire-Lord-here'. They told a number of stories about this 'A-Team' that would help anyone who was desperate, any one, not just Fire Nation, when no one else could. If you could find them. He had to admit they made for interesting reading. Surely these man weren't the same who disgraced themselves at the end of the war. Something wasn't adding up. Maybe he should investigate this farther.

It would at least get him away from the paperwork for a while.


End file.
